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China's Superior Technologies
paRcat writes "Still think China is a land too far away from everything? This article compares some of China's common uses of technology to what we're accustomed to in the West. With the genius traffic lights and the cell phone coverage... I'm kinda jealous."
Almost every developing nation has a higher rate of cell-phone coverage than the US (and many other "western" nations.)
The Bell System and the various state-owned monopolies built reliable, universal landline networks across these countries almost a century ago. Since the majority of the infrastructure has already been made and paid off decades ago, use of these networks today is commonplace (and very affordable.) The technology is often proven, well tested, and reliable (often regulated.) Cell phones, on the other hand, are more expensive and less reliable.
In developing nations, the landline systems are often unreliable and not much cheaper (if at all) than mobile systems. Users in these countries have every reason to invest in mobile phones. I wonder if this will continue to be the case with the deployment of VoIP systems.
What about Western Europe? There is much more existing infrastructure in the Western European countries than in the U.S. However, they also seem to embrace technology faster than the U.S. I feel it is due to population density. The U.S. has a low population density. The denser the population the greater your market in a particular area. No surprise that technology hits those types of markets sooner than later.
Another topic where half the posts will be comments that contain nothing but jingoism and nationalist comments rather than examine China's genuine potential for growth.
Remember people, this is the world's biggest nation (by population), with the real potential to be the world's biggest manufacturer and the world's biggest marketplace. And, remember, that that potential is starting to be realised: China already has a import surplus of billions with most Western countries, including the US, and China is now starting to become a real consumer culture in its own right.
They may have given everyone else a head-start but then so did Japan and Germany post-WWII, and look at how powerful their economies have become.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I'll take my basic freedoms and liberty any day over technology.
Seriously. Don't you think there's a cost to all this? Do you really think a republic like the US could do something like this?
The fact is -- it would be easier for us to modernize Iraq than it would be to modernize the US. Authoritarian control makes everything a ton easier for the government at the expense of the people.
Pick your poison.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Who moderates this stuff? China and Europe have personal residences and restaraunts older than your counry. Boston's a swaddling baby compared to them.
Thanks for the false dilemma. Either we accept corporate hegemony and end-times theocracy or we accept godless Communism? How about freedom, which resembles neither?
In the early 90s I was in a small factory city in South West China. The town was a mass of concrete; an artless, treeless, birdless place dominated by factories. The only luxury goods available were cigarettes and rice wine. Once at the train station one of the locals lectured my friend (a Swiss guy who spoke fluent Mandarin) on how China was leading the world technologically--while the *steam* trains pulled in and out of the station. The local airport even had half a dozen bi-planes sitting on the tarmac and the soldiers had WWI era rifles. In the special economic zones you no doubt have something much closer resembling the standards of the West (and the seeds of the Communist's downfall). One city near the border with Hong Kong protected its appearance, replete with skyscrapers and the reflecting glass that dominated Western architecture in the 80s, with a massive mandatory carwash. Every vehicle coming into the city from the country was forced to go thru the carwash. The carwash also doubled as a inspection point as ordinary citizens needed permission to enter the special economic zone.
abu-gharaib.
We even export our human rights violations.
The one thing I like about Japan's stagnation is that there is no poverty there. It is amazing that in a country as rich as the USA, 12% of the people there live in poverty. Guess what, that is the same as in China.
In USA when the economy suffers, it is mostly the poor on whom it is taken out on. They lose insurance, they lose their jobs and so on. In Japan, they stop growing but guess what, they are not really sweating it. They value different things. Americans value riches and expensive cars. The Japanese actually do get by with Toyotas. Witness how the Lexus brand ws only recently introduced in Japan after being in USA and Europe for the past 20 odd years. And it is owned wholly by a Japanese company. Because the Japanese do not have such big brand mentality, they will be buy a Toyota for the equivalent of $80,000. Americans will have none of that.
USAs GPD per Capita is inflated by the very rich. Japan has one of the smallest, if not the smallest Gini coefficients in the world. There is much more even wealth distribution than in USA. The USA is a country full of individuals, but Japan is more of a community.
In many ways Japan is far ahead of the USA. They still produce higher quality goods than USA and indeed just about every other country.